Software Industry

The global industry that develops, maintains and publishes software, operating mainly on license and maintenance based on premises models or cloud based models such as software, platform and infrastructure as a service, alongside complementary services such as training, documentation, consulting and data recovery. The industry invests heavily in innovation, spending more than 11 percent of net sales on research and development, a share second only to pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, and global IT spending was projected at roughly 3.73 trillion dollars in 2024, rising to about 5.26 trillion dollars when telecommunications services are included, with Microsoft, HP, Oracle, Dell and IBM among the dominant players. Between 1995 and 2018 the industry saw about 37,039 merger and acquisition deals worth a combined 1.166 trillion dollars, reflecting continuing consolidation.